Local Tech Company Turns Innovation into Data Visualization

April 15, 2020 - San Antonio

By B. Kay Richter - Writer, San Antonio Sentinel

Over the past three years, the technology-based company Cityflag has grown from a simple idea to a company with over a dozen employees, multiple products, and several clients around the world. 

Today, the local tech company continues to grow at a rapid pace. Additionally, the outfit's new focus and innovation - dubbed Irys - provides a more clear-cut analysis of not only cities but micro-organizations, as well. 

“For us, Cityflag stood for a more functional approach,” CEO and co-founder Beto Altamirano said in an interview this week. “There’s not a lot of sexy going on as it pertains to startups (working with government). We wanted to find a more contemporary approach for solving issues and that was our market strategy.” 

Shifting their focus from a communication module between residents and cities to one that actively utilizes technology to improve and enhance communities was one such method. Like most tech companies, Irys has learned that the data gathered by their application is just as valuable as the communities using them. 

That realization not only created a new client base, but also brought an enhanced exchange of how cities and organizations analyze this open-sourced data. 

"We designed our mobile app to increase civic participation by providing unique user experiences. We also designed and developed a CRM [customer relationship management] dashboard that provided city governments with an improved work order management process, enabling cities to quickly and efficiently manage service requests," the company stated in a recent press release. 

According to Altamirano, that dashboard also offers an ability to quickly gather and analyze large sets of data which can measure the operational performance, providing more insights into cities. 

“We started working with other organizations, in fact, we just won a contract with the United States Airforce,” Altamirano said. “We were able to help military personnel better connect with each other.” 

The company consists of three main innovators and co-founders: Altamirano, Eduardo Bravo and Alberto Gomez. Their clients are often the heads of cities and municipalities which serve citizens on a large-scale.

The next part of the equation involves figuring out how many citizens could potentially be served when considering this new technology and the applications of Irys. As a relevant comparison, the company’s functionality behind their application, Cityflag, has connected more than 100,000 residents to their respective governments and enabled city administrators to resolve more than 150,000 service requests. 

For Irys, using different algorithms created the data visualizations which in turn can directly cater to the specialized interests of any organization. For example, one such data identifier was the amount of scooters downtown. Cityflag users were able to quickly pinpoint scooters which had fallen into the Riverwalk or proved as obstructions for major pedestrian crosswalks, thus rendering them non-ADA compliant. 

“We hope that using this data can create a better map for users,” Altamirano said. “I think a lot of organizations are able to gain access to this information, but they may not be able to use it. They find the data but it is not organized data so it takes a long time to process. We can accelerate that process by organizing the data within a few weeks versus a few months.” 

However, data visualization is only part of the company’s mission. Their larger mission is to build and enhance communities. Due to the nature of today’s social distancing standards, local municipalities may find it difficult to connect to residents via town halls and forums. Irys representatives believe their company can offer a solution. 

“We literally just launched a tool called the COVID-19 support app,” Altamirano said. ”This is the first product that we are now developing where customers can access the dashboard to try and engage this data. We also created a resource page for residents in order to access all the things which help people during this crisis.” 

The utilization between residents and cities to create a cohesive application is key - not only for major post-pandemic cities but also for the future of community engagement. 

“Thus far, there has not been a need for people to engage in public policy,” Altamirano said in conclusion. “This is why a tool that allows residents to engage directly with organizations [local governments and entities] while adapting to this new environment is so vital.”

B.Kay Richter is a San Antonio-based writer and photographer. Email her at bkay@sasentinel.com.